The Kelsey Group's overly simplistic model of the electronic world looks like this. Content can be information, advertising, video, etc.; the delivery of that content might be cable, DSL or wireless; and the device which is used for access could be a computer, a PDA or a cellphone, among others. It has been our view that this circle is only as strong as its weakest link and that always on, high-speed access is critical to the success of the electronic world.

The fact that a Hyatt in Virginia, a Holiday Inn in Durham and an Ameri-Suites at RDU airport all offered Internet access in the guest rooms is not a surprise. That the service was free and high speed did get my attention. What blew me away was that there were computers in their business centers that allowed me to use this service at no cost. (As an added bonus, my cellphone worked clearly in all three hotels.)

Being in Durham during an ACC basketball game is quite an experience. Everything everywhere was crowded. Using local search from the computer in the business — make that consumer — center allowed us to get around the crowds.

See for yourself how fast this industry is changing at The Kelsey Group's conference on Drilling Down on Local: The Online/Offline Opportunity, April 18-20, in Santa Clara, California.

First there was Live 8 and now the Space Shuttle: "Nearly 433,000 people simultaneously watched NASA's webcast of this week's space shuttle launch."

The significant difference between watching this type of event on conventional TV and online is that online you can be targeted by advertisers on the basis of the content and your geography. But if IPTV does come to pass, then your TV becomes a vehicle for Internet delivery and vice versa.

The very simple point here is that these two recent events show that online video is rapidly becoming a mainstream phenomenon.

The new Google Maps mashups are coming now by the day . . . Here's PremierGuide's (local search platform provider) customer list plotted on a Google Map. Here's a site — ApartmentRatings.com — that has integrated Google Maps and apartment ratings/reviews from locals.

Unresolved issue: Will Google eventually charge publishers that are in one way or another making money directly or indirectly off maps or integration of maps into their local products?

Britain’s Office of Fair Trading issued a statement on April 5 that it would request that the nation’s Competition Commission begin an investigation into the UK classified directories market. The OFT made the recommendation based on its conclusion that the competition that has emerged recently in the UK directories market has not produced results that satisfy the agency.

The agency appears to want highly distributed market share, less profitable market leaders and less expensive advertising choices for small businesses. The OFT has since 2001 placed Yell, the market leader, under a strict rate cap, equal to the rate of inflation (retail price index) less 6 percent. From 1996 to 2001 the rate cap was RPI minus 2 percent. The OFT’s announcement does not guarantee a renewal of the rate cap, nor does it suggest that a rollback is very likely.

The Kelsey Report will cover this issue in greater detail this week in the Local Media Journal as well as in an upcoming Advisory.

The Swedish publisher Eniro AB has pledged to reduce the decline of its Swedish print business at a faster pace than earlier promised. The publisher saw its print directory revenues in its flagship Swedish market decline by almost 11 percent last year. It originally pledged to cut that figure to minus 5.5 percent and 0 percent in 2006. In its first-half results issued this week, the publisher said it expected print in Sweden to decline by 3 percent this year, and reach neutrality next year.

It appears that some of the measures the publisher has taken to stem the decline, including a product overhaul, process improvements, pricing changes and a sales reorganization, are starting to take effect.

The Kelsey Group will produce a detailed Advisory in August that takes a look at half-year results and analyzes what they say about the direction of the global Yellow Pages industry in 2005.

In the first half of 2005, eBayers sold approximately US$10.6 billion worth of goods through the online auction service.

Check out the eBay press release here.

Some things to consider:
- The average sales per eBayer (all 1.5 million) in the first half of 2005 was US$7,067.
- Over half of eBay members use the online auction as a primary or secondary source of income.
- Less than 1 percent of U.S. Internet users are eBay members.
- eBay members outnumber Wal-Mart employees in the U.S. by 200,000 people.

Interesting things to ponder… How many of these eBay members are not using traditional local media (newspaper classifieds, for instance) to advertise their products because they heavily depend on eBay? How many new businesses have formed to support eBay members or wannabees â€" such as drop-off auction houses, shipping product distributors, eBay educators, etc.?

In my ongoing fantasy of buying a new Mac, I periodically visit the Apple site. Today I was checking out the widgets page and saw that the Google Maps Widget was the top download. That says two things to me:

• Google Maps continues to gain attention and is growing in popularity (I keep getting messages from folks about new "mashups")
• Google will probably answer Yahoo!'s Konfabulator (my new favorite toy) with its own PC Widgets

I already find myself using Yahoo! search more because of the widget's presence on my desktop. Oops. I just discovered Google search widgets already exist.

Yahoo! is moving agressively beyond the browser and the desktop as part of an apparent strategy to be the most useful information and lifestyle management service around:

"Yahoo! seeks to provide online products and services essential to users’ lives, and offers a full range of tools and marketing solutions for businesses to connect with Internet users around the world."

A series of back-to-back announcements show that Yahoo!'s making good on that statement. First there was Konfabulator (I've talked about that enough already), which extends search and services beyond the browser. Then there was the Motorola deal, baking Yahoo! services into its mobile devices. Now there's the Boeing in-flight announcement.

I've believed for a while that My Yahoo! was a powerful model for personalization. To varying degrees the other major portals/search engines are now pursuing a similar strategy. Google recently added more feeds to its personalized home page. Here's MSN's Start.com

Now, as part of its ongoing public (meaning publicly accessible) makeover, AOL has redesigned My AOL and added RSS feeds courtesy of a partnership with Feedster.

Here's the laundry list of current and to-be-added features.

Even though only a fraction of the U.S. population understands what "RSS" is, it will be a widely used and very important tool in the near future, both for consumers and for marketers.

AOL is building an impressive new set of features and capabilities and this is just one more nice (and important) upgrade.

_________

Related:

Chris Sherman's Search Engine Watch overview

MediaPost coverage

AOL's press release

Wired News article on AOL generally

The folks at PEW have come out with another report that has some generally intuitive but important information for those who are eager to see online trends slow or reverse (read: some in traditional media). Not going to happen. The telephone survey polled approximately 1,000 U.S. teens (12-17) last November.

For the next generation (Y, Z, AA — whatever you want to call them), new media is simply part of the DNA of their daily lives. Perhaps the most striking takeaway from the document is the accelaration of teen adoption trends in the last few years.

Some highlights from the report:

• 76 percent of teens get their news online
• About 21 million teens use the Internet and half go online daily
• 51 percent of online teens live in broadband households
• 43 percent have conducted e-commerce, 71 percent higher than four years ago
• 75 percent of teens online use instant messaging
• Roughly 50 percent of teens have cell phones and use text messaging as they use IM online

Here's where you can get a copy of the full report.